U.S. Imposes Sanctions on 3 Leaders of Gang Based in El Salvador

MEXICO CITY — The United States government imposed sanctions on three leaders of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang on Thursday as part of a broader effort to crack down on the transnational gang, which is based in El Salvador and runs human trafficking and drug operations into the United States.

The three men are all in prison in El Salvador but continue to give orders from there, according to a statement from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The action allows the government to seize any assets the three may have in the United States and prohibits American companies and citizens from doing business with them.

One of the men, José Luis Mendoza Figueroa, is one of the founding members of the gang, known as MS-13. The other two, Élmer Canales Rivera and Eduardo Erazo Nolasco, are leaders of regional cells, known as “cliques,” according to the Treasury Department.

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